The Accidental Agent

by Andrew Rosenheim

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither,’ he said, sailing out the door, looking pleased that his ignorance was shared.

  In the outer hallway the smokers had dispersed. Fermi led Nessheim to the north-west corner of the block, where two massive wooden doors had been swung back, revealing another entrance into the hall, as wide and high as the one Nessheim had come through. Above the lintel framing the high doorway, several bricks were missing, and Nessheim could see the grey sky outside through the gaps they’d left.

  ‘That is this morning’s work,’ Fermi said gloomily.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The truck arrives and picks this entryway to deliver. It comes into the hall and we unload the graphite bricks. Filthy stuff to handle and extremely heavy. That is why the truck comes inside. But when the driver left he took something with him.’ He pointed up at the gaps. ‘The university authorities don’t know yet. But they will be – how do you say it? – tied to be fit.’

  ‘I think it’s fit to be tied,’ Nessheim said gently.

  Fermi flashed a smile, as if they both knew English was a ridiculous language. ‘Can you explain why the truck can come in without problem and then leave with such destruction?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Nessheim, wondering if Fermi was testing him. ‘The truck came in fully loaded, right? So it would have been sitting low.’ He motioned down with his hand, palm extended. ‘Then when it had been unloaded it would have sat a lot higher.’ And he brought his palm up.

  Fermi nodded approvingly. ‘See, you are a natural for the role. You don’t even have to act.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Fermi, ‘that is not what you are here for. Though it would be more useful for me if you could prevent this disaster happening again than spend all your time on this wild chicken chase.’

  ‘Goose chase. It’s called a wild goose chase.’ He laughed. ‘And let’s hope that’s exactly what it is.’

  Fermi was no longer smiling. ‘Believe me, Mr Nessheim, I am completely confident of that. I know my colleagues and none of them would do anything to help the Nazis. Not one. In fact, all of them are desperate to beat the Nazis to it.’

  Nessheim didn’t reply to this. ‘What deliveries do you have in the next few days, Professor?’

  ‘More graphite and wood from the Sterling Lumber Company.’

  Nessheim suddenly remembered the short tutorial given to him and Guttman by Oppenheimer, explaining how a chain reaction had to be controlled or the neutrons would escape harmlessly. Heavy water – that had been one solution. Graphite was another, though back in Berkeley, Oppenheimer had worried that it would be impossible to find graphite pure enough and in sufficient quantity. They must have succeeded.

  Nessheim said now, ‘Okay, I’ll try and sort it out so there isn’t another disaster.’

  Fermi looked at his watch. ‘You’ve had lunch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither have I. Come and we will go to eat.’

  Moving towards the west entrance they passed another door, identical to that of the racquets courts. ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘Sandbags in case of fire. And some stored materials,’ Fermi said elliptically.

  Nessheim remembered what the scientist had said in Berkeley. ‘Uranium?’

  Fermi looked at him sharply. ‘I thought you weren’t a scientist.’

  ‘I’m not. It doesn’t take Einstein to guess what’s in there.’

  Fermi grinned. ‘That is a new expression for me – “It doesn’t take Einstein.” I like it. I will tell Einstein when I see him next.’

  They walked to 57th Street and turned east. Nessheim assumed they would eat at Hutchinson Commons, but as they approached the doors a group of people came around the corner. ‘Enrico,’ one of them called cheerfully, and Fermi stopped.

  ‘Hello,’ said Fermi. ‘I am just showing my new acquaintance the place.’ He pointed to Nessheim – ‘Gentlemen, may I introduce Mr Nessheim. He has come to assist us in our labours. Not,’ he said quite clearly, ‘a physicist, but an expert in running things. Is that fair, Mr Nessheim?’

  ‘More than fair,’ said Nessheim, and the men laughed. They seemed a friendly bunch, and now Fermi introduced them in turn. Nessheim listened intently for their names, and they were all familiar from Guttman’s dossier: Szilard, the eminent Hungarian physicist, a short podgy man who shook hands formally, like a dignitary; Anderson, tall with a crew cut, acting like a regular Joe; Nadelhoffer, a bearded giant of a man whose birthplace Nessheim had noted, since it was less than forty miles from his own in Wisconsin; Leona Woods, the only woman, who was shy and serious-looking; and Kalvin, the man Nessheim had met an hour before.

  ‘You coming to lunch, Enrico?’ the youthful Anderson asked.

  Fermi shook his head. ‘No, you go ahead. I will see you later on.’

  Fermi kept walking, crossing University Avenue. He stopped at the first building they came to, a Georgian-style mansion of rust-coloured brick. Holding the front door open for Nessheim, Fermi said, ‘We’ll eat here – it is a club for faculty and more private.’ He added with a touch of pride, ‘They made me a member when I joined the Met Lab.’

  Inside, Fermi nodded at the receptionist, standing behind a counter that held candy and cigarettes, then turned right sharply. Ahead of them there was a long mahogany bar set in a slightly sunken room. It was empty, except for two old men who sat across from each other at a card table, studying their hands, and closer to the window, a man in a dark jacket and patterned bow tie who was playing billiards by himself.

  They climbed the slate-tiled staircase, then at the next floor went down a few steps into the dining room, a large room with chandeliers hanging from its high ceiling, though now ample daylight poured in through the tall windows on the building’s southern side. A maître d’ led them to a discreet corner, away from all the other tables, overlooking the rear gardens where men in tennis sweaters were playing doubles on the clay tennis courts.

  A waiter in a white coat poured iced water into their glasses while they scrutinised the printed menu and ordered. When the waiter left, Nessheim tried to make small talk. Did the Professor like Chicago? How about his wife? Were his kids enjoying America? He sensed Fermi knew it was etiquette rather than genuine interest at work, though the Italian answered patiently enough. At one point he looked out of the window at the tennis players.

  Nessheim said, ‘Do you like tennis?’

  Fermi nodded. ‘Yes. I am a good player. Do you play?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The General said you were a football hero. The American football.’

  ‘I used to play.’

  ‘You are modest, I see. Forgive me, but I am somewhat surprised now that I see you in the flesh. You are tall but do not seem … brutal enough for football. I thought the players were all enormous and like to crush each other.’

  ‘Lots of them are. I could run fast and stay out of their way.’

  Fermi smiled. ‘As for me, I am not a team sportsman. I exercise a good deal – bicycle, and walking, and swimming. All summer, I swam at The Point, almost every afternoon.’ Fermi laughed before sighing. ‘I suppose we cannot spend all lunch discussing sports. Shall we talk now about the goose chase?’

  Nessheim nodded. ‘I need to make a start somehow. Security needs to be tighter in the offices used by the Met Lab, but I will talk to the General about that. For Stagg Field, I will need to know who has keys to the courts, what the work shifts are, and so on.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Fermi without conviction.

  ‘Tell me, are new people still arriving at the Met Lab?’

  ‘People are joining all the time. We have a meeting every two weeks to introduce them. There is one next week in Ida Noyes Hall. And – this will please you – we talk about security.’ Fermi dropped his voice. ‘How they mustn’t talk about anything in public, not even mention any scientific words. That there is a secret at all is a secret, is what they are told. Y
ou should come; we even show a film.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s called Next of Kin. Someone is careless with a briefcase full of top-secret military plans, and it is stolen by foreign spies. The result is catastrophic,’ Fermi said with delight.

  ‘I’ll come to the next meeting,’ Nessheim said. ‘But in the meantime, I’ll need a list of newcomers. Are you still recruiting senior people?’

  Fermi shook his head. ‘No. The new ones are technicians and junior scientists, working on very specific problems. We do not tell them about the larger objectives, so none of them will have the big picture. Even if I believed in this spy of yours, I would not worry about the new people arriving.’

  ‘All right,’ said Nessheim, hoping Fermi was right. ‘But what about your senior colleagues – how did you find them?’

  ‘I did not need an advertisement. We physicists are not a very big community. Some I approached myself. Some Szilard did. He got the programme started and he knows everybody.’ Fermi’s voice was admiring.

  ‘They would have been vetted by Groves’s people?’

  ‘Always. And they come with formal references. In writing,’ he added a touch astringently.

  ‘I saw from the file that many of them are foreign.’

  ‘Of course. Like me. Some are even registered aliens. Like me.’

  He said this so dispassionately that it took a moment for Nessheim to register the resentment behind it.

  Nessheim said mildly, ‘I didn’t know that. It seems ridiculous.’

  ‘Does it?’ Fermi’s voice still gave nothing away. He drank his iced water. ‘That is not for me to say.’

  ‘It’s a free country, Professor. Say what you like.’

  ‘Even to the FBI?’ he said, amused.

  ‘Even to me,’ Nessheim said firmly.

  ‘When I used to visit here before I moved from New York, each time I needed a special permit. Finally, they gave me the extended permit. But not for my wife,’ he said, openly angry now. ‘If, for instance, I take her to Milwaukee to celebrate our anniversario matrimonio, and do not get her a permit for the trip, I could be thrown into …’ He stopped, searching for the word.

  ‘The pokey.’

  Fermi smiled. ‘Si. “The pokey.” ’

  Nessheim said, ‘To be honest, Professor, if your idea of a romantic getaway is a weekend in Milwaukee, then you probably deserve a few days in the clink.’

  For a moment Fermi stared at him, baffled. Then the sense of it sank in, and he laughed out loud.

  Their food came. Fermi looked at his tuna sandwich and potato chips as if Oysters Rockefeller sat on his plate and declared, ‘In Italy right now people are eating dried beans and green potatoes. It was the same in the other war when I was a boy.’ Fermi picked up half his sandwich and examined it almost lovingly. ‘People here have more food than they can eat, heating in their houses, and hot water and toilets. I am not sure why they feel they must complain about the cost of gasoline.’

  ‘Americans drive everywhere, especially in the country. If you live on a farm it can be a long trip to town if you haven’t got wheels.’

  ‘Wheels? Ah, a car. I get it. You have lived on a farm then?’ Fermi’s curiosity seemed authentic.

  ‘I grew up on one.’

  ‘Your family owns a farm?’ Before Nessheim could explain, Fermi went on excitedly. ‘That is my dream.’

  ‘It is?’ Nessheim decided not to say his father had lost the farm ten years before.

  ‘I told my wife that when I was forty years of age I would become a farmer. That was before the war, of course. It has delayed my plans. I –’ He paused awkwardly, as if realising it sounded as though he viewed the war chiefly as an obstacle to his personal ambitions. ‘You see, physicists are no good after forty. I will only be remembered for the work of my years before that.’

  Again this startling self-confidence. But presumably that was how you won the Nobel Prize. And it had the benefit of being said without vanity or arrogance, as well as letting Nessheim steer Fermi back to the project.

  ‘Professor, here’s my phone number – you can call me any time there’s a problem.’ He handed over a slip of paper. ‘But there’s actually only so much I can do. You’re the one who understands the project, and who knows the staff. You’re the one who has to tell me if anyone is behaving suspiciously, or badly, or out of character. You know them; I don’t. I have to rely on you.’

  Fermi smiled with what Nessheim was beginning to see was his perfunctory smile – quick, tight-lipped. The genuine article broke out like sunshine all over his face.

  ‘These are scientists, Mr Nessheim. We are not like other people. Scientists do not believe in secrets. How can they, when they spend their lives searching for the truth?’ He picked up a potato chip and looked at it appraisingly. ‘You will understand that my colleagues are sometimes tense. They understand the importance of their work here.’

  I wish I did, thought Nessheim. Then he heard a woman’s throaty laugh from a nearby table, which was blocked from view by a pillar. An older man’s voice declared, ‘Now that, my dear, was war.’

  Fermi said, ‘The General was insistent that I not discuss the project with you – or anyone else, of course.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Fermi stared at Nessheim, his eyebrows raised. ‘Do you? I sense you know more than Groves would like. I did not mind the General, though I liked more the other man – Guttman. Groves is nonetheless … impressive.’ He looked at Nessheim intently. Nessheim made sure his face gave nothing away. Fermi said, ‘He is a general, after all …’

  ‘Hitler only made corporal.’

  Fermi laughed appreciatively, then wiped his mouth with his napkin. He leaned forwards, serious now. ‘If this experiment succeeds, then we will have truly opened the box of Pandora. And the lid of the box will never be put back.’ He whistled through his teeth, imitating a sudden gust of wind, then waved a hand dismissively. ‘Some of the staff are frightened by this.’

  ‘Do you feel the same?’

  ‘I did,’ Fermi acknowledged. ‘But if we don’t do it the Nazis may get there first. That would be catastrophe. They want to take over the world. And they are trying to.’

  ‘Okay.’ There was nothing to contest.

  Fermi said more calmly, ‘The Russians are another matter.

  Many people sympathise with them, and now of course they are allies.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Nessheim drily.

  Fermi said, ‘I share your enthusiasm.’

  ‘How dangerous is your experiment?’

  ‘In my view not at all. Others may disagree, because any time you travel into the …’ He hesitated.

  ‘Unknown?’

  Fermi nodded. ‘People get scared.’

  ‘Is there any chance that you could blow up Chicago?’

  ‘No,’ said Fermi, and carefully ate the last corner of his sandwich. ‘Unless I am wrong, of course.’ He was smiling as he wiped his mouth with his napkin.

  ‘But if someone did want to sabotage the project what would they do?’

  Fermi pondered this for a moment. ‘They would take advantage of the fear.’

  ‘What fear?’

  ‘That I might blow up Chicago. Or the world.’

  ‘How would they do that?’

  ‘They would cause an explosion, perhaps. Or make a fire. Anything to demonstrate this is a process that cannot be trusted.’

  ‘But they can’t blow up Chicago, can they?’

  ‘No. They can only suggest it might be blown up if people tried this experiment again. They would be trying to scare off the authorities, you see, to do enough to stop the work on the experiment. And that would be disastrous.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘If General Groves decided he had to slow things down to be sure it was safe, or perhaps even stop for some time, we could waste a year, maybe more until “the coast is clear”, yes?’

  ‘I can understand why he’d do that.’
/>
  ‘Can you?’ Fermi shook his head. ‘I can’t. It would be worse than sabotage because it would be unnecessary. And let the Germans catch us. So the sabotage would have its desired effect.’

  Some of the tennis players came in, now showered and dressed in coats and ties and looking hungry for lunch. The waitress arrived with a coffee pot in her hand, and when Nessheim shook his head no, Fermi motioned for the check. ‘I need to get back to my work,’ he said to Nessheim as the waitress totted it up.

  ‘When is the next delivery?’

  ‘Monday, in the late morning. Zinn will be there. I will explain to him you are coming.’

  I’ll miss Jurisprudence, thought Nessheim, but there didn’t seem an option. The waitress put the bill down between them and he reached for it. ‘I’ll get this.’

  ‘But no,’ Fermi said, sounding horrified. ‘You are my guest here.’

  ‘The FBI can afford a lunch,’ Nessheim said, wondering if in fact he could claim expenses. Since the SAC in Chicago didn’t know he was on the payroll, it wouldn’t be easy. ‘It can be on your tab next time.’

  On their way downstairs, Nessheim looked to see who was at the table behind the pillar. No wonder the laugh had sounded familiar. Stacey was sitting by the window, looking half-flirtatious and entirely attentive, while Professor Fielding sat with the expression Nessheim knew so well from other men Stacey had flattered – puffed up with pride, but apprehensive that the rapt interest of the beautiful woman with him required a more entertaining performance than even the Arthur McNeil Professor of Jurisprudence (Emeritus) could deliver.

  They left the club. At the corner as Fermi started to say goodbye, Nessheim asked, ‘Will I see you Monday?’

  ‘Absolutely. Come to Eckhart Hall first. The graphite truck will not arrive until eleven or so. Thank you for lunch. Or should I thank Mr J. Edgar Hoover?’

  ‘I’ll be glad to convey your gratitude.’ Though Hoover was the last person Nessheim would tell about this conversation.

  Fermi didn’t laugh. He looked at Nessheim. ‘When the General told me a security person would be arriving, I expected a dumb policeman. You sometimes try to play that role, Mr Nessheim, but it is not convincing. I think you are more than you let on.’